Chris Graham: Big government, big business, screw the little guy

This one is almost a good idea.

“Virginia’s economic success is directly tied to the success of our small businesses,” said Gov. Bob McDonnell in a statement in a press release announcing an initiative that will do anything but.

It’s called “Virginia Get Your Business Online,” and it’s a program initiated by Google aimed at giving small-business owners a “free” website for their businesses and, according to the press release, “other free tools, training and resources to help their businesses grow and succeed online.”

Which is fine, except …

What about the small businesses that, I dunno, do things like build websites and provide other tools, training and resources that help small businesses grow and succeed online?

Here’s what: Those businesses lose out to the power of Google, the biggest big business in the history of the world.

And yeah, I’m pissed off at seeing this because I also run a small business whose core focus is building websites and providing social media and advertising solutions for other small businesses. I’ve got skin in the game, in other words.

What happened to the Republican mantra of “if you can find the service in the phone book, then government shouldn’t be providing it”?

“This initiative will provide many small businesses in the Commonwealth with the opportunity to grow their sales, expand their operations and, most importantly, use that growth to employ more of our citizens,” McDonnell said.

Uh, no, actually. What you’re really doing is making it harder for people like me to keep a staff of four employed outside of having to beg the likes of Google to outsource the work on these “free” sites to help us pay our bills.